It all for started in Swindon’s Town Hall for Alison Bruce – then Lansdown – at a film-writing course.

“I like the idea, but you need to write a book first,” was the tutor’s instructions.

So Alison went away and wrote her third book; well, her first, but it was like Star Wars where the first turned into the third in the seven book series.

I knew Alison in the 1980s when she was a presenter on local radio, presenting a rock and roll show.

I have photographed her with her Ford Zodiac car as a mechanic, as a model, and recently I ventured into her now home town of Cambridge, to interview her about the first book in the Detective Goodhew series of crime novels. Continue reading →

So this Swindon Festival of Literature evening involved a spot of dancing to a cheesy tune, being stuck in a car park, and a wild-ish haired professor. Sounds like a good plot for a book.

Which leads into the first event’s theme, Poetry Swindon 78s, where the Richard Jefferies Museum’s writing class used scratchy old 78 RPM vinyl records as a creative prompt. At Swindon Central Library, we heard the tunes and the writers read their work.

I had enough time to catch Anna-May Laugher’s Ready for the River from a 1928 track by The Rollickers – ‘Want to drown my troubles / and leave just the bubbles’. I was glad I bought the accompanying 78s book and could get to know this poem: a five-part account of a river, a living thing, accepting and eating anything thrown in it – dead things, oar cuts, memories – before it is consumed by drought.

Regretfully, I crept out and then spent 10 minutes stuck listening to the bleep of a Swindon car park help button (‘hanging on the help button’ flash fiction coming up) before I could head up to the Arts Centre, which meant I missed the first half of Roger Scruton. So apologies if crucial information is notable by its absence. Continue reading →

Armed with her own international heritage, Rachel told her collected stories before she introduced the dancers, who performed to a soundtrack of recorded tales of refugees and asylum seekers, newly arrived in Swindon. Continue reading →

At least that was what I was expecting during last night’s session with Linda Blair on mindfulness, but that didn’t happen. Linda is a clinical psychologist based in Bath who has written The Key to Calm, a book on how we can bring more calm in our world. Her approach is much more about being aware of yourself and your surroundings rather than finding a way to escape from it. And it seems like the world needs it; I was surrounded by a packed out audience of stressed out men and women, all looking for advice on how to manage their lives better. Linda has really positive energy and a we-can-do-it attitude made better by her Southern American accent and I’ll put my hand up and admit I was one of the first to yawn as I relaxed in her presence. I was also quite anxious as everyone in the audience seemed to have a pine cone in their hand. Why did they all have pine cones and I didn’t? Was there something special about the people with pine cones? Were they the chosen ones? Why wasn’t I offered a pine cone, etc? Continue reading →

This was Chris Tutton’s second visit to Swindon. Six years ago he led a session in the Museum and Art Gallery.

Today [Friday 8 May 2015] he read from his new collection, Angles of Repose, and then offered up the stage to the audience to read their poems. Chris gave performance tips and advice.

‘Just let me know when I’ve read for 40 minutes’, he asked and began with talking muscles, dreams of the sea, off-the-cuff remarks, grown-up regrets, and magpie memories. His asides and introductions to the poems were funny and dry, I was never quite sure why he was telling us this stuff, then I’d find myself laughing. Continue reading →